FIRST SNOW AND THE OWL

This poem I wrote while I was at Leicester University studying for a BA in English Literature.

One of my lecturers was poet Robert Wells who was on the editorial board of the English Faculty's 'Poetry Worksheet'. The Spring 1982 edition carried this poem of mine which Robert Wells had seen and recommended for publication. 

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FIRST SNOW AND THE OWL

Sun's haemorrhage

On snow's anaemia momentarily

Lights up the owl's alarm.

Pink freezes blue in the forgetfulness

Of moments while the owl

Calculates winter's coming.

Above, numb limbs of tree

Girdle him in stupor,

Sore, separate suddenly from his hooting.

Conspicuous as blood on snow

He breathes steadily beneath measured

Feathers.

He will not hoot again,

Or call to the vast, heedless settling

Delicacy. The nest is cold.

This he knows, eyeing the white shock

Of the hibernal onset, mistrustful,

Weighing a branch beneath his weight.

Below him, slow, the roots leak paths

In the void, rising, stern, determined

Like the grip of bruised fingers.

The owl flies low, buoyed up by fear

And the air's crisp parsimony,

To warn the sun.